ERTH Seminar Series — Chico State Skip to Main Content
California State University, Chico

ERTH Seminar Series

Zeke Lunder gives a keynote on “How Salmon Connect the Universe” to the campus community

Talks are free, open to the public, 1–2 p.m. in the Science Building Room 244, and students are highly encouraged to attend. Talks will be recorded and the video made available on the ERTH Department YouTube channel.

Snacks are provided by the department and the Association of Geological and Environmental Students (AGES). For more information contact the department office at 530-898-5262 email us at erth@csuchico.edu.

About the Seminar Series

The ERTH Seminar Series is a multidisciplinary series of Earth and Environmental Science seminars highlighting expert talks on climate, water, hazards, geology, and emerging research, alongside student presentations and professional development sessions.

2024

Spring

  • Dr. Scott McCoy – University of Nevada, Reno. Understanding post-wildfire debris-flow activity across climates: insights on initiation conditions and flow identification.
  • Dr. Iris Holzer – UC Santa Barbara. Enhanced rock weathering for CO₂ removal in cropland soils: methodologies, measurements, and lingering unknowns.
  • Dr. Adrian Harpold – University of Nevada, Reno. Forest management for water supplies: examples, challenges, and opportunities.
  • Dr. Tomoko Komada – San Francisco State. How ‘Green’ is Blue Carbon? Harnessing Radiocarbon to assess the role of saltmarshes in climate change mitigation.
  • Dr. Ann Bykerk-Kauffman – Chico State. Faults of the Coyote Mountains, southern California.
  • Dr. Elizabeth Trembath-Reichert – Arizona State University. What lies beneath: Who lives miles beneath the seafloor and what are they up to?
  • Dr. Tamara Kraus – USGS California Water Science Center. Measuring nutrient and phytoplankton linkages everywhere, all the time.
  • ERTH Graduate Students – Proposal presentations.

2023

Spring

  • Ben Parrish and David Reioux – California Geological Survey. Economic Geology.
  • Dr. John Knowles – CSU Chico. Ecohydrology.
  • Dr. Monica Arienzo – Desert Research Institute, University of Nevada, Reno. Microplastics, Hydrologic Sciences.
  • Dr. Paul Bédard – University of Quebec at Chicoutimi. Economic Geology.
  • Rear Admiral Ronald Piret – U.S. Navy. Oceanography and Meteorology in the U.S. Navy.
  • Carlo Arreglo – Lassen Volcanic National Park. Navigating a Career in the National Park Service.
  • Dr. Kosana Suvočarev – UC Davis. Micrometeorological Measurements for Farm Education and Extension.
  • Dr. Stephen Self – UC Berkeley. The Global Threat from Explosive Super-Eruptions.
  • Dr. Alyssa Griffin – UC Davis. Marine Sediments in a Changing Climate: Unlocking the Past and Preparing for the Future.
  • Dr. Matthew Roby – U.S. Department of Agriculture. Water and Carbon Flux Responses to Atmospheric Demand and Rainfall Intensification in Drylands and Irrigated Agricultural Systems.
  • Dr. Troy Magney – UC Davis. Plant Biology and Remote Sensing.
  • ERTH Graduate Students – Proposal Presentations.

2022

Spring

  • Dr. Julie Griffin – Sacramento State. Orbital Forcing of Precipitation Recorded in an Upper Paleozoic Cyclothem of the Midcontinent, USA.
  • Jack Rayl – Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board. SST Oil Tandem Truck Overturn.
  • Dr. Wenrong Cao – University of Nevada, Reno.
  • Dr. Brian Atkinson – University of Kansas.

2021

Spring

2020

Spring

  • Sandrine Matiasek – CSU Chico. Biofiltration of urban stormwater: lessons learned from long-term bioswale monitoring.
  • Scott Lindvall – Lettis Consultants International. Crossing the San Andreas Fault: Improving the Resilience of the Los Angeles Aqueduct System.
  • Carlie Pietsch – San José State University. The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum.
  • Gerry Griesel – Carlin Trend (Barrick Gold). Structural Controls on Gold Mineralization, Carlin Trend, Nevada.
  • Will Halligan – Luhdorff & Scalmanini. SGMA: How the Act is impacting water resources management in California.
  • Amy Robson, Cameron Cole, Cara Tamcke, Trinity Stirling, and Roy Hull – Panel Discussion on Preparing for a Career in Geology and Environmental Science.
  • Laura Rademacher – University of the Pacific. Desert springs: linkages between geology, hydrology, and ecology.
  • Brandi Reese – Texas A&M Corpus Christi and NOAA. On the hunt for microbes below the ocean floor.
  • GEOS Students – CSU Chico. Research Updates in Environmental Science and Geology.

Fall

  • Due to the transition to fully online instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic, the traditional GEOS Seminar Series was not held this semester.

2019

Spring

  • Dr. Robert (Bob) Miller – San José State University. Cascadia tectonics.
  • Dr. Todd Greene – CSU Chico. Facies architecture and provenance of a boulder-conglomerate submarine channel system.
  • Radley Ott – Butte County. Recovery Efforts and Watershed Impacts Related to the Camp Fire.
  • Alberto Garrido – Oroville Dam spillway: A day in the life of an engineering geologist.
  • Dr. Allen Glazner – UC Berkeley. A 21st-century view of plutons; granite and ice cream.
  • Harihar Nepal – CalEPA. Cannabis Cultivation and California Regulation.
  • David Sandino – DWR. Groundwater law vs. groundwater hydrology.
  • GEOS Students – Hawaii Trip Posters.
  • GEOS Graduate Students – Thesis proposals.

Fall

  • Laurie Racca – Board for Professional Engineers, Land Surveyors, and Geologists. Career Planning: The GIT and the Professional Geologist License.
  • Zeke Lunder – Deer Creek Resources. Prescribed Fire and Landscape-Scale Wildfire Management.
  • Rich Perry – Nevada Division of Minerals. Geology and Mineral Deposits of Nevada.
  • Alex Bryk – UC Berkeley. A Global Study on the Pace of River Platform Change.
  • Isaya Kisekka – UC Davis. Sustainable Agricultural Water Management in California.
  • GEOS Students – Student Research Presentations.
  • Mike Rowe – University of Auckland. Changing Eruption Styles in the Auckland Volcanic Field.

2018

Fall

  • Dr. Ian Faloona – UC Davis. Second Hand Smog: Intercontinental Air Pollution Transport.
  • Dr. John Dilles – Oregon State University. Structural Geology of Porphyry Copper Deposits.
  • Dr. Laura Waters – University of Oxford. Why Obsidians Erupt and Aplites Freeze.
  • Dr. Sarah Pittiglio – CARB. Overview of the California Air Resources Board.
  • Dr. Todd Greene – CSU Chico. Deep-water Submarine Channel Deposits at San Luis Reservoir (Postponed).
  • Dr. Andrew Harp – CSU Chico.
  • GEOS Students – Department Poster Session.

2016

Spring

  • Gene Lewis, Mark Sysmanski, and Sean Nies – CSU Chico. Undergraduate Research Posters.
  • Glenda Marsh – California Department of Conservation. Addressing Hazards from Abandoned Mines in California.
  • Dr. Richard Koehler – University of Nevada, Reno. Far-field Plate Boundary Deformation: Paleoseismic Perspectives from Nevada and Alaska.
  • Dr. Lanny Fisk – Paleoresource Consultants. Pleistocene Droughts Recorded by Caliches in the Central Valley.
  • Dr. Miranda Fram – USGS. Quality of Groundwater Used for Public Drinking Water Supplies in California.
  • Frank Anderson – USGS Land Carbon Program. A Comparison of Atmospheric Carbon Processes in Natural and Restored Wetlands.
  • Charles Real – California Geological Survey. Reducing Tsunami Risk in California.
  • John Clinkenbeard – California Geological Survey. Mineral Resource and Mineral Hazard Studies.
  • Dr. Ann Bykerk-Kauffman – CSU Chico. Geology of the Coyote Mountains.